The Route Ahead

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Reading. Or at least I was. Maybe it's adult ADHD or maybe,
since embarking on what has now become a nearly ten year journey of discovery,
the reading across disciplines of theology, history, anthropology, and others I
find that interconnected tones lead off into reflection.

Still reading "The Age of Reform 1250-1550" and
Ozment is now looking at the life and work of Martin Luther. The consensus of
the scholarship seems to show that Luther's earlier religious life before and
after monastic life were marked by anxiety and neurosis. Of course in the
middle ages the religious method of clergy (which was thrust in lesser measure
to the laity) was marked by a deeply penitential structure; i.e. "paying
your way" toward salvation through structured forms of self-loathing and
penitential, ascetic practices.

From where does this derive? It isn't Ozment's purpose to
answer that question, and it's probably there in the writing if I'd read with
an eye to find it. But it isn't a leap to take this all the way back to the
myth of a garden called Eden.

James Alison writes[1]:
"One of the first fruits of the fall was the knowledge of good and
evil, does it not suggest that that knowledge, at least in its current form, is
inappropriate to us?"

Reflection on this can reveal much about not only Luther's
life and times but our own. There is so much anxiety and neuroses in our
culture and this anxiety seems to be behind much of the hatred and vilification
of "the other". So just how deep do these roots go?

It would be foolish to argue that there is no difference
between good and evil, there is. But it seems we are not supposed to know that
there is! This is surely a complex arrangement. But in the story when it
connects the knowledge of these two states to death is where a larger panorama
opens up. The fact that we know the difference leads to death. Death has two
players, one is the dead, the other is the killer. When we teach others the
difference between good and evil are we in fact instructing them in a
methodology of how they may die or, even more disconcertingly, to kill and be
justified in doing so?

This obviously creates a huge problem. There is also,
biblically, this other connection made throughout. "Sin" = death. So
then we have this: knowledge of good and evil = death; sin = death; knowledge
of good and evil = sin. This is no mere syllogism.

So then in this way "sin" (whatever it is) is not
connected with "evil" in a strict sense but with knowing the
difference between it and "good" and that this leads us, or others, to
death. We, as a species, use this knowledge as a method of justification for
just about every type of evil one could imagine.

Alison continues[2]:
"Any accusatory knowledge of sin has a particular propensity to
blindness about complicity and that only forgiveness enables us to see."

In light of this what should we teach others? What should we
relate to our children, our neighbors, our friends, or maybe more importantly,
our enemies if not some sense of moral certitude if our moral certitude is a
part of this pattern of sin and death as told us by the Christian scriptures?

I am assured that Jesus gave plenty of clues for those who
have ears, and eyes to at least begin working this out.

[1] Alison:
"The Joy of Being Wrong, Original Sin through Easter Eyes" pp 263,
Crossroad Publishing Co. New York.

Friday, March 4, 2016

"It is our preconceptions that give us the insight that we have into
something but paradoxically they are also the source of our blindness for what
is right in front of us."

One example of this is contained in myexposition of 1Kings. Language that
is taken uncritically hides the patterns of preconceived notions of meaning.
It's not just the words in one's bucket but it is also the size and shape and
color of the bucket that counts too. Similar to a wineskin as I've written
abouthere.

A phrase such as "old nature" is already layered with centuries of
meaning provided by a particular notion of that nature being something distinct
to individuals. What if it can be shown to be of a completely other thing? One
that can only be properly understood in a cultural or sociological way related
to origins. It would seem that Jesus' counter-revolution is structured not
around individuals but around community and this sense of community is to
contain a very distinct counter-culture and type of sociology.

Are our natures bounded and shaped by a worldwhich
we have shaped in a way that serves our nature? Kosmos, which is
translated world, means an "orderly arrangement" and can refer to a
completely naturalistic structure, a hypostasis, of purely human origin. I propose
it is this orderly arrangement that is the container for and shape in which any
sense of "old nature" is derived. It sets the very boundaries of what
we can know about thiskosmosat all! It is the very human
way that societies are ordered around creating and maintaining
"peace" by giving and receiving death in the making of enemy others
and by sacrificing those others summum bonum.

Jesus is found everywhere juxtaposing
the kingdom of God/heaven against the kings/kingdoms, i.e.
principalities/powers of this world; the "orderly arrangement" of
human being. God's orderly arrangement falls along certain ethical-though not
only ethical-lines and the content of Jesus' teachings seem to flow from this
understanding as they appear as subversive and anti-normal from a human
perspective. It goes against our "natures" to even imagine ordering a
society around a notion of enemy love and forgiveness or justiceas mercy.But is this not exactly what
the community project that began from his work is called to be and do in stark
contrast to the principalities/powers and kings/kingdoms of earth as a sign to
the world, a lamp on a stand, a message of hope in the midst of despair?

"What if I told you that the Matrix is the world that is pulled over our
eyes to blind us to the truth?"

What if there was no such thing as an "individual"? That the idea of
autonomous being is merely a romantic illusion? This would constitute a change
in perspective that changes everything else. This can precisely be a way that
we are "joined" with the Adamic narrative in scripture. Not by some
sense of individual genetic progeny, nor in some mysterious metaphysical
attribution of sin, but by means of a certain form of sociality and
culturalization, something structuring and functional, and none could even see
it much less escape it, because from the moment we're born we enter into this
human predicament. This is apartof Alison's[1] thesis
as he has built upon the insight of the interdividual psychology of Rene'
Girard. I am continually being formed by my imitation of the desires of
another, I exist only in my relationship with others.

This is what Girard has so keenly
observed and systematized over a lifetime of study and it has very deep
explanatory power by which to see the world and ourselves. View theAsch experiment on YouTube to see how
early researchers in the 50's had already had a basic view into this without
fully recognizing it's significance or the scope of its influence. Reinhold
Niebuhr, an American theologian, in "Moral Man, Immoral Society"
dances all around this in 1932 but was never able to grasp the insight into it
that Girard later did.

The biblical "creation" narrative of Adam and Eve's temptation is not
toward disobedience but toward desire-I am aware that Paul uses this story in a
different way but, on a close reading, to make a similar point-though this is
not just about desire per se but about how it is acquired. It
appears from the story that desire to be like God (whatever that means) was
original and good. God is portrayed as a completely gratuitous giver, man the
grateful receiver, every desire always gratuitously fulfilled and therefore seeking
and desiring for nothing.

The break that occurs is when the
serpent "tempted" or caused Eve to desire, but not just to
desire but TAKE for herself what had been previously gratuitously given;
likeness to God. Were they not, after all, created in his image and therefore
already "like" him? This doesn't just represent a single action but
presents itself as a model of being malformed by acquisitive desire. She
"received" ,or took as in "taking a cue from", her desire
from the serpent, likewise Adam "received" his desire from Eve.

What happens next is an amazing reversal. In the tale Adam and Eve both hide
from God; who has no nefarious intention. When confronted over this peculiar
behavior Adam blames, is willing to sacrifice, i.e. scapegoats, Eve for his
desire. Eve likewise deflects blame, is willing to sacrificethe serpent who is
the final scapegoat in this story, one through whom Adam and Eve can regain
unity. What we have is a rupture within the structure of human relationship
where it now requires an enemy other to be sustained! In much later
writings this "serpent" becomes referred to by the moniker
"accuser", that is to say the principle of accusation, and it
functions precisely as a force though which we can identify scapegoats in order
to create social order.

Of necessary importance to this
mechanism's functioning is our blindness to it. Jesus gives us some insight
into this unconsciousness from the cross when he prays: "forgive them
Father for they do not know what they are doing." Quoting Girard[2]:
"To have a scapegoat is precisely to not know that you have one, you think
that you have a culprit." He would say in an interview [paraphrased]:
"In the 17th century nobody would have made the claim to be a witch. We
have that now but not then. In the seventeenth century the term witch was
merely anaccusation".
As such it served to ameliorate social crisis at that time by the expulsion and
murder of others accused as being responsible for the crisis.

So within the Adamic narrative it is only after eviction from the garden,
essentially being "given over to their own desires"[3],
do we see any working of death (of which God has nothing to do with) in the
story of the murder of Abel. This being given over to our own desires is
something that requires a much deeper discussion of its own on the nature and
shape of judgment or punishment.

Now addressing the continuity and discontinuity of "natures" old and new. The writings of James Alison, N.
T. Wright, and others show that there is a certain continuity between the here
and hereafter; what weareand what we areto become. Would that we desire
to be the kind of people who would "be at home" within a world, a
Kingdom, such as Jesus describes, this continuity already would exist and might
allow one to make a more-or-less seamless transition while for others "it
would be like going through fire"[4].
Now as to the manner in which we are constituted as human beings. If we are
constituted as being formed by desiring of the desire of another then this
continuity can remain. Only the manner in which desire is appropriated need be
transformed. Psalm 37:4 should probably be taken quite literally on this point: Delight
yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.This giving of desires is
frequently misunderstood in a self-appropriative manner i.e. If I delight;
Lord gives me thingsI desire.
This might instead be understood as desires will be established within
one in a non-appropriative way. This correction of origination of desire
could happen in anapokalypic-as
unveiling- way to us within mind and spirit simultaneous and inseparable.
This would represent a type of undoing the effect of the original distortion of
desire; original sin if you can accept it.

In the Revelation of John we have an image of the way thisapocalypsismight appear:Rev 1:7 Look! He is
coming in the clouds. Every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and
all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him.This rich symbolism seems to
represent a mass 'repentance' or a simultaneous re-ordering in which 'all the
tribes of the earth' have a fundamental cognitive shift. This mourning or
grieving, not in fear of some retributive act, but because of the sudden
recognition in which all creation at once and finally sees its complicity in a
culture of death and death dealing, victim making, and violence. It includes
the tacit recognition of notknowing
what we were doing that is now being revealed not only in what we have done
but also how we have reconstituted ourselves from the beginning. So who is this
group of "those who pierced him" except all humanity? Matthew[5]
records this fact yet the one who is pierced still calls us friends.[6]
But thankfully all who mourn will be comforted.

I close with the following citation which refers back to my original
observation on preconceptions: Paul Ricoeur:
The Intersection Between Solitude and Connectionby Kathleen O'Dwyer

Freud,
Marx and Nietzsche… All three recognized that meaning, far from being
transparent to itself, is an enigmatic process which conceals at the same time
as it reveals. Kearney, in his introduction to Ricoeur's short thesis, "On
Translation", explains that for Ricoeur, translation "indicates the
everyday act of speaking as a way not only of translating oneself to
another…but also and more explicitly of translating oneself to oneself".
(Kearney, 2004: 7, 8).

[1]James Alison,
The Joy of Being Wrong. Original Sin through Easter Eyes.

[3] See also
Romans 1;24 for an instance of judgment
shaped as a "giving over" to our desires.

[4] 1Co
3:15 If his work is burned up, he will
suffer loss. However, he himself will be saved, but it will be like going
through fire.

[5] Matt 26:31
Then Jesus told them, "All of you will turn against me this very night,
because it is written, "I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the
flock will be scattered." (quoting Zech 13:7)

[6] Zech 13:6
"Someone will say to him, "What are these injuries to your
hands?" He will reply, "They're what I received at my friend's
house."

Monday, January 25, 2016

As Rene´ Girard was developing mimetic theory he was confronted with the challenge from his critics over the use of the word "sacrifice". He understood the scriptures throughout to reveal an anti-sacrificial message but he was still hemmed in by having to use the word "sacrifice". He stated that he believed "the answer to everything" was somehow within the story of Solomon's Judgment and he carried that story in his mind continually.

Therefore the primary insight here I have borrowed from Girard but in pursuing a better understanding of this I observed other meaningful interpretive elements in the texts cited above. Here is the first scene as I examine some of these elements.

After two introductory verses we come to verse 3:

Solomon loved the LORD, and lived according to the statutes that his father David obeyed, except that he sacrificed and burned offerings at the high places.

It seems clear from this text that this sacrificing by Solomon was regarded as a negative attribute in his appraisal as king. The word rendered sacrifice could as well be translated "slaughtered" as every meaning of the word zaw-bakh includes slaughter; brutal or violent killing. Further it is to be noted that this "slaughtering" is not connected by the writer with any form of idolatry. Too much should not be made of the allusion to high places as it previously states in verse two that sacrifice was occurring throughout the land at "high places" simply because there was, as of yet, no temple.

Verse 4 cites one such location, in Gibeon, where Solomon sacrificed 1,000 burnt offerings. So we have here birthed a nascent awareness that there is something amiss with this sacrificial behavior and or orientation.

Verses 5 through 8 recount the dream that Solomon has where God makes an offer for Solomon to "ask for whatever you want" and this results in Solomon wisely asking for the following in verse 9a:

"So give your servant an understanding mind to govern your people, so I can discern between good and evil..."

The specificity of Solomon's request should not be overlooked: "so I can discern between good and evil." This point and the discussion of sacrifice above taken together provide the interpretive key that unlocks the fuller meaning of what follows in the text.

This scene in the narrative closes with God being pleased by such a request and the granting of riches, etc., in consideration for such a humble request. Now we move on to scene two.

Scene one closes with Solomon waking up and realizing he's "dreamed a dream" and sacrifices and throws a party for all his servants. Scene two begins with this: "Right about then". It almost seems as if the writer doesn't want you to forget the previous keys before you get to the door that needs unlocking. I reproduce the text of the second scene here for reference:

1Ki 3:16 Right about then, two prostitutes approached the king and requested an audience with him. 17 One woman said, "Your majesty, this woman and I live in the same house. I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. 18Three days later, this woman also gave birth. We lived alone there. There was nobody else with us in the house. It was just the two of us.

19This woman's son died overnight because she laid on top of him. 20She got up in the middle of the night, took my son from me while your servant was asleep, and laid him to her breast after laying her dead son next to me. 21The next morning, I got up to nurse my son, and he was dead. But when I examined him carefully in the light of day, he turned out not to be my son whom I had borne!" 22"Not so," claimed the other woman. "The living child is my son, and the dead one is yours." But the first woman said, "Not so! The dead child is your son and the living one is my son." This is what they testified before the king.

23The king said, "One of them claims, 'This living son is mine, and your son is the dead one' and the other claims 'No. Your son is the dead one and my son is the living one.' 24"Somebody get me a sword." So they brought a sword to the king. 25"Divide the living child in two!" he ordered. "Give half to the one and half to the other."

From verse 23 it is clear that Solomon cannot make a just determination from this as he recognizes their competing claims and the impossibility of being able to discern the truth of the matter between them. As brilliant as the tact he applies is to this situation in verse 24-25 this really only leads us to the true revelatory structure of the text itself, leveraging the prior interpretive keys a) the explicit leaning against the idea of sacrificial slaughter and b) the longing for discernment between good and evil.

Now we come to the point in the story where is the revealing of a distinction in our language of "sacrifice".

1Ki 3:26 The woman whose child was still alive cried out to the king, because her heart yearned for her son. "Oh no, your majesty!" she said. "Give her the living child. Please don't kill him." But the other woman said, "Cut him in half! That way, he'll belong to neither one of us."

What we should be led to here is the fact that both women were willing to "sacrifice" the child. But the nature and understanding of that sacrifice is completely subverted away from slaughter and toward a form that is a redemptive self-giving, non-retributive, and non-violent. It is in fact an anti-sacrificial sacrifice. So then if we are to consider that Solomon received the ability to "discern good from evil" then we should ourselves make a distinction here. But exactly where or how should we do this?

Referencing the interpretive keys above and one other detail from verse 16 we should be able to rightly divide this text. Verse 16 tells us that these two women are prostitutes. It seems significant that the writer includes this detail. At minimum their moral status as prostitutes has no bearing on a judgment here regarding the issue of good or evil. That one of the women, in her obviously grief stricken state would have no regard for a child that is not hers and would see it killed rather than suffer a second loss of a child doesn't seem to quite fit either. There is no corresponding good with which to juxtapose this understanding.

Therefore I propose, and think this is supported by the textual arrangement here, that what is really being judged by Solomon is, in fact, sacrifice. One is a "good" or "acceptable" sacrifice, and the other an "evil" or "unacceptable" sacrifice.

There is here in both instances the same object of sacrifice, the child, yet the manner and at least as importantly is that the motivation for sacrifice is completely different. The woman who would see the child slaughtered was moved by grief and brokenness; unable to escape from the pain and fear that dominates her moment. Wanting that some other would "know" her suffering. The true mother of the child is willing to surrender all claims to the child, giving it over completely to the other so that the child could live.

It is in this second woman, a prostitute no less, that we find, in a christological reading of the text, the image of God and the only acceptable sacrifice that is a self-giving one following Christ's self-giving to us to become our victim and open our eyes to the fact the we are all, at the end of this story, portrayed as the one who says: "cut him in half" or more contemporarily: Crucify him! There is here a clue to the secret of living out a life that begins to mimic God and it is revealed in the prostitute/mother who would abandon all claims so that another-or others-might live.

Saturday, September 19, 2015

And the God concept became like a wineskin and was filled
with ideas about what God was like.

And the wineskin was ancient and deeply
held and human beings hated and killed the "other" to protect it.

The wineskin was not God but instead was full of the lies we
tell about him. But we only lie because we live in darkness but oh how we love
our wineskin.

But suddenly someone saw God[2]
and he knew that the wineskins were dry, rotting, and worthless.

And many of good intent tried to put this One into the
wineskin, and thought we succeeded. But in so doing only spread the lies now to
the One lest the wineskin should burst as it could only contain lies and not
The Truth.

And we poured wrath from our wineskins and said:

"Away with the foreigner, let's build a wall."

And the One said: " I was a stranger, and you welcomed
me."

And we poured wrath from our wineskins and said:

"Death and vengeance to our enemies!"

And the one said: "But I say to you, love your enemies,
and pray for those who persecute you"

And our wineskins, which should now be strained, we only
held more tightly.

And we poured wrath from our wineskins and said:

"God will judge us because of those 'others' and we
must stand against them!"

And the one said: "the way that you judge others will
be the way that you will be judged, and you will be evaluated by the standard
with which you evaluate others." "Let the person among you who is
without sin be the first to throw a stone..."

" the people of Sodom and its nearby villages were
never as sinful as you. They were arrogant and spoiled; they had everything
they needed and still refused to help the poor and needy. They thought they
were better than everyone else..."

And we poured wrath from our wineskins and said:

"Crucify HIM!"And the One said:"Father forgive them; they don't know what they are doing!"

Saturday, July 4, 2015

What follows is
rooted in a distillation of some insights put forward by Douglas Campbell
in his thesis: The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of
Justification in Paul. I believe Campbell's work will overturn the tables
of post reformation theology much as Jesus overturned the tables of the money
lenders in the temple.

Recently Romans 1:18-32 has been a commonly sited verse within the new
testament used to attack gays (as it were) and "Christians" are
jumping all over it to justify their condemnation of same-sex attraction,
marriage and resistance to extending to them constitutional rights.

When you look at how these texts are structured this is all the more tragic because
these brothers and sisters are in fact falling for a false gospel being
promoted by a false teacher and this is the problem Paul is attacking and that
is what I intend to show here.

Preliminary points:

a) The letter to the
Romans is not a doctrinal letter but an occasional letter as are all of Paul's
authentic works. This excludes 1 & 2 Timothy as they are of unknown origin
but are certainly not of Pauline authorship, a point undisputed by scholars.

b) Paul has
proclaimed his calling as "the apostle to the gentiles".

c) Paul finds
himself (in many of his letters) having to either defend his gospel against or
otherwise refute false teachers preaching false "gospels".

d) Many believe
these false teachers to be from the Jerusalem church and we should NOT downplay
Paul's bitter dispute with Peter in Antioch. This was a sign of significant
divisions between Jewish believers and church leadership and their gentile
counterparts. These are divisions in the early church that should not be
dismissed or taken lightly.

Twice in Romans (1:18-32 & 3:1-9) Paul uses the Greek rhetorical device of
prosopopeia. This is where he accurately, lest his argument against it be
discredited, lays out his adversary's position in relative detail in order to
appropriately address it in rebuttal.

The reason Paul
sends letters with a "carrier" (aside from the fact of very low
literacy rate at the time) is that this person was with Paul when he wrote the
letter and upon arrival performed the letter as a lector so that the change in voice
would be clear. Even without this benefit it is still discernible in
this text. I personally found it more difficult to notice the beginning of
the division precisely because of the fact the incorrect reading of the text
had become "normalized" from having spent 25 years within the
protestant tradition where Paul is understood by reformation era justification
theories.

This distinction becomes very clear when Paul begins his rebuttal in Romans 2:1
of the false teachers argument put forward in Ch1 vs. 18-32. If ever one has
gone away from reading Paul and thought; "He just might have some sort of
personality disorder" it is because his use of these grammatical
structures and diatribe go unrecognized.

Paul's rebuttal beginning in Rom. 2:1:

"So do you think that you can judge those other people? You are wrong. You
too are guilty of sin. You judge them, but you do the same things they do. So
when you judge them, you are really condemning yourself.2 God judges all who do
such things, and we know his judgment is right.3 And since you do the same
things as those people you judge, surely you understand that God will punish
you too. How could you think you would be able to escape his judgment?"

In 3:9 he is again turning the false teacher's accusing finger around
addressing the false apostle's next argument, laid out in 3:1-9. I'm taking a
bit of liberty here for the sake of making a contemporary connection.

Rom 3:9 So are we Jews [heterosexual American Christians] better than other
people? No, we have already said that those who are Jews [heterosexual American
Christians], as well as those who are not [heterosexual American Christians]
Jews, are the same. They are all guilty of sin. 10 As the Scriptures say,
"There is no one doing what is right, not even one. 11 There is no one who
understands. There is no one who is trying to be with God. 12 They have all
turned away from him, and now they are of no use to anyone. There is no one who
does good, not even one." 13 "Their words come from mouths that are
like open graves. They use their lying tongues to deceive others."
"Their words are like the poison of snakes." 14 "Their mouths
are full of cursing and angry words." 15 "They are always ready to
kill someone. 16 Everywhere they go they cause trouble and ruin. 17 They don't
know how to live in peace." 18 "They have no fear or respect for
God."

If anything describes how fundamentalist Christians have positioned themselves
in our culture today it is verses 13-18.

Paul was the consummate egalitarian in regard to his gospel. With Jesus he
views the only law that has meaning is the law of faith expressed through love.

Further, the arguments in 1:18-32 can be found in the apocryphal work Wisdom of
Solomon books 12 and 13 and is a form of standard anti-gentile discourse. Paul,
being educated in both classical Greek and the Jewish rabbinic tradition, does
not hesitate at tearing apart this assault as a false gospel. So even if
the grammatical construction wasn't here (which it is) as the "apostle to
the gentiles" it would make little sense for him to go against his own
gospel and beat his Greek hearers over the head.

Many have claimed that those who champion grace and "tolerance" are
suffering from "itching ears" syndrome. Just hearing what their
itching ears what to hear and ignoring rectitude but that argument is empty.
Grace, peace, love, acceptance, "tolerance" are decidedly NOT what we
want to hear as self-righteous human beings. We want to hear is exactly what
Jesus DENIED his hearers in his first public sermon in Nazareth when quoting
from the book of Isaiah everything BUT the final part of Ch 61 verses 1&2.
This enraged his hearers as these passages were a well known statement of the
hope of Israel. These passages might have been held up a football games much
like John 3:16 is today and it is also why they tried to throw him off a cliff.

Isa 61:1 "The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed
me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed and to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness
for the prisoners; 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

Jesus conveniently (and deliberately I propose) leaves out: "and the day
of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;" Notice the connection
between the day of vengeance (against our enemies-whoever "they" are)
as being a "comfort" to the mourners.

This is the sickness of human sin and this is what itching ears really want to
hear!

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

With this morning's study I was skimming the surface of
apocalyptic as worldview and the concomitant historical and social context. The
apocalyptic rose in the period beginning around the Babylonian exile of the
Jewish elite around 570BCE to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans around
70CE. This directly influences the thought, language, and literature throughout
this era. The cultural zeitgeist of apocalypticism and subsequent literature is
one marked by the themes of crisis, secret knowledge, and a dispensational or
periodized perspective.

What I find particularly interesting is that within rabbinic
tradition following the destruction of Jerusalem the apocalyptic view fell out
of favor and was rejected as a way of continued framing of cultural identity
and understanding of their world. It only survived and proliferated because of
the fledgling movement known then as "the way" which was the early
followers of the ethic of Jesus. They
had taken interest in and appropriated it, obviously modified using more
ethereal elements as it continued to frame their worldview. It is in this sense
these ideas never had a true "Christian" origin.

Recently, within the stream of a seven year long theological
discourse, and before beginning this overview, I had put forward the idea that
the only reason that the strange language and beliefs unique to the ancient
apocalyptic era still exist within the sub-culture of religion is because of it
being mishandled by the reformers. So this is only partly true in that its roots
go back much further. The hope within the second temple era seemed to be
inextricably linked to an apocalyptic expression of messiah as a deus ex
machina of violent redemption. That simply never was to be and was subversively redefined by the ethic and self-giving life and death of Jesus. The destruction
of Jerusalem brought with it the deconstruction of the apocalyptic worldview
from within Jewish rabbinical thought.

This new movement-followers of the way-was able to
grasp-albeit in limited ways-the subversive aspect of the hope yet they did not
critique and leave behind the apocalyptic cultural bias as did the more
scholarly rabbinical groups. So apparently it seems then that those deeply
knowledgeable of and acculturated to the Jewish "way" missed the subversive
appearing of messiah while the multicultural-and largely illiterate-adopters of
"the way" of Jesus were able to grasp this subversity yet were still
adrift within a world of cultural ideas and hopes framed almost entirely by
folklore and superstition.

This simply shows why there is need for a fully orbed faith.
A faith that never turns its eyes and mind from reality in favor of embracing
cultural or religious sub-cultural delusions. What is sometimes obvious to
those who make a habit of broad study is missed by those who merely do
devotions-by definition the antithesis of study-and participate in religious
culture at large. Yet those participants can if not careful find themselves
first on the margins, then at the center, of irrelevancy by not getting the
mind in the game and working things out.

It doesn't require much thought to question whether
something is true or not. An entirely more engaging question is to ask:
"How is it true?"

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

I came across this phrase while reading Brian Zahnd's book
"A Farewell to Mars." God has a face. Later the next day that phrase
came rushing back into my mind as a string of thoughts on just what that might
mean from several perspectives.

Anyone who has been within a Christian religious subculture
for any significant time may be familiar with the verse from Hebrews, 1:3 where
it states: "...[Jesus] is the reflection of God's glory and the exact
likeness of his being..." I think we may really miss the absolute depth of
this statement about God. Too often we get caught up in
"religious-ese" and somehow mystify this simple statement that, in
plain terms, puts a face on God. And that face is Jesus.

God has a face. I was thinking about a new crew member
scheduled to come on the boat. All I had was a name from the crew dispatch
email sent earlier in the day. The name seemed familiar. When mentioning it to
other crew members they were like: "Yea, you remember, he used to ride
with us a few years ago. Well that still didn't help my comprehension and I
said, "Yea, the name seems familiar but I can't put a face to it."

I propose that it is in this sense that the entirety of
the scriptures need to be viewed. The email - old testament writings - are part
of a message that something or someone is coming, but as we know the message is
not a complete communication, and in this case not a clear one either. Then we
have the testimony of other crew who "remember" him i.e. the new
testament. But there is something strikingly more about the face.
It is here that we recognize and can then begin to join those things that are
connected or belong to this person's story and reject or critique those
that are part of some other story even if unsure what that other story is we
know that it does not belong to or is a reflection upon the one with the face.
It is in the growing cognition of that face that guides us in this
process.

Well of course we don't know what the physical face of Jesus
looked like so instead we must connect the one with the face with his own
words and actions that define him. Those things that by his words and actions
most clearly show what he thought important and valuable. There is plenty
enough there to critique the content of the original message and also begin to
see a mosaic portrait appear that gets us much closer to seeing the God which
many of the original messengers all too frequently missed.

We shouldn't blame those early writers for missing the face.
There was a great deal of competition. Even if inspired they were still trapped
within a world that was primitive, deeply violent and superstitious. A world of
ubiquitous fear and death. A world culture filled with sacrificial gods,
malevolent to a one, running amok over humanity; if even only in their minds.

There was simply was no one able to represent the face.
Humanity wasn't yet capable of grasping... of beholding, such a face in such a
world. In spite of all these handicaps we still can find those elements that belong
to the story that goes with the face but we must start with the face not
the ancient story. It is not anachronistic to read the story this way because the
point of the story leads to the climax wherein is revealed the face. It is the Face which brings some
elements together and reveals others as merely false and fallen human
imaginings.